Many organisations have been raising money for relief in Ukraine as the Russian invasion continues, and two big pushes from the videogame industry have revealed some figures for efforts so far.
The first is Fortnite. Epic Games announced that, between 20th March and 3rd April, all real money transactions in the game would go straight to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
We reported on this effort crossing the $50 million mark, but now it stands at over $70 million. It’s worth noting that this latter $70 million figure only represents the money raised between the start of the campaign on 20th March and 25th March. Epic Games has been providing these updates which are lagging by a few days so that amount is surely much higher right now.
This programme is still running so if you play Fortnite and have been meaning to make some cash purchases, now would be the best time to do so.
Humble Bundle recently wrapped up a bundle where many games were packaged up and sold with 100 percent of the proceeds going to charities supporting Ukraine. The bundle was massive and the games inside, according to Humble Bundle, were worth more than $2 000.
Sales of these bundles have now raised more than $20 million.
This Humble Bundle is no longer available for purchase, but, as always, those who want to contribute to Ukraine can do so through official organisations such as The UNHCR Refugee Agency, UN World Food Programme, UNICEF, Direct Relief, International Rescue Committee (IRC) and International Medical Corps (IMC).
These are the organisations that Humble Bundle and Epic Games are working with already and all are accepting direct donations.
Finally, for those of us in South Africa, below are the Rand conversions of the aforementioned US Dollar amounts so we can better appreciate the scale of the efforts here. And yes, that is over a billion Rand raised by Fortnite right now.
- Fortnite’s previous total | $50 million ≈ R733 899 000.
- Fortnite’s current total | $70 million ≈ R1 027 458 600.
- Humble Bundle games value | $2 000 ≈ R29 355.96.
- Humble Bundle’s total | $20 million ≈ R293 559 600.
